Re: Open Source Video Codec and Container (alternative to Xvid)
On Sat, Jun 28, 2008 at 01:28:47PM +0200, Simon Jolle sjolle wrote:
> I am running a forum with small video clips (from YouTube and others). I
> convert those Macromedia Flash videos with:
Under US law, you may want to think about copyright issues. I don't know
about any other country's laws.
> $ mencoder example.flv -ovc xvid -xvidencopts bitrate=1000:autoaspect
> -vf pp=lb -oac mp3lame -lameopts fast:preset=standard -o example.avi
>
> I use mencoder RPM from Dag Wieers
There's a Debian packaged mencoder at debian-multimedia.org. Just add that
repository to your sources.list.
> 1) Its very generic command line to convert videos. What would you
> improve? The size is much bigger than the original FLV :(
It's going to be. The AVI container format isn't suitable for the very
smallest file size, and you're setting a high bit rate.
> 2) Is there a real open source format what I should prefer? Can you say
> something about its quality?
Ogg Theora springs to mind. It's totally free (no patents, no nothing).
Quality is good, but ...
> 3) Whats the most painless format for exchanging videos with Win, Mac
> and Linux users?
AVI works, actually. Windows Media Video (WMV) is not open, but it's
playable on all three with the right software. MP4 can be played on all
with the right software and will give you excellent compression. Actually,
FLV is a good choice for web streaming. You can play them locally, if you
can convince your users to install VLC or something.
BTW, I convert FLV to AVI with this command line:
ffmpeg -i filename.flv -sameq filename.avi
You can automate this with:
for i in *.flv ; do ffmpeg -i {} -sameq `basename {} flv`.avi ; done
Using "-sameq" gives you the same bit rates as the original file. If
desired, you can specify codecs as well, but the default MPEG4 ASP and MP2
works for me. (If size is an issue, force MP3 compression.)
--
Carl Fink nitpicking@nitpicking.com
Read my blog at blog.nitpicking.com. Reviews! Observations!
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